


Thaw

by VenatorNoctis



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Comfort, First Time, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Canon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22874086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/pseuds/VenatorNoctis
Summary: The Seventh Umbral Calamity has struck Eorzea, and the cold is getting to some people in Ishgard."I had a nightmare. I mean I've been having it a lot, really, I don't know why it was so much worse this time, but I don't want to go back to sleep even if I can and I thought maybe—""Aren't you freezing, standing there?" The coals are almost dead in the fireplace, and even before the snows Artoirel's room got cold late at night."A bit," Emmanellain admits.Artoirel sighs, pushing the quilts back. Emmanellain hasn't come to him like this since they were boys of perhaps eight and twelve. "Well? Hurry up and get in."
Relationships: Artoirel de Fortemps/Emmanellain de Fortemps
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Kissing Cousins Flash Exchange





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nan/gifts).



Artoirel wakes abruptly at the creak of a floorboard; he's always been a light sleeper, and since the red moon's fall he's been tossing and turning almost every night. But most nights, there isn't a silhouette darkening the doorway of his bedroom.

"Who's there?"

The figure takes a step closer, and enough moonlight falls over his features to reveal that it's Emmanellain. "I had a nightmare. I mean I've been having it a lot, really, I don't know why it was so much worse this time, but I don't want to go back to sleep even if I can and I thought maybe—"

"Aren't you freezing, standing there?" The coals are almost dead in the fireplace, and even before the snows Artoirel's room got cold late at night.

"A bit," Emmanellain admits.

Artoirel sighs, pushing the quilts back. Emmanellain hasn't come to him like this since they were boys of perhaps eight and twelve. "Well? Hurry up and get in."

Emmanellain doesn't need to be told twice. He hurries to cross the room and burrow under the quilts, and Artoirel remembers at the last second to brace himself for Emmanellain pressing cold bare feet against his shins to warm them. Instead of complaining Artoirel pulls the blankets tight around them both, trapping their warmth beneath layers of linen and wool.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks as Emmanellain snakes an arm around his middle. This feels so strange and inappropriate when they're grown men, and yet at the same time so familiar, coming home to a place they haven't been in decades.

"I don't know. Maybe." Emmanellain's voice is small, more fragile than he ever sounds in the daytime. "It sounds silly. It sounds like nothing when I put it in words."

"It was enough to wake you," Artoirel points out.

Emmanellain nods; his hair brushes against Artoirel's ear, the touch soft and feathery-light. "I dream... I dream that the snow doesn't stop," he murmurs. "It keeps falling, piling up higher and higher until the front door won't open, until we can't get out. Until the windows in the ballroom show nothing but white. And it's cold, and I know I could fix it if I remembered how, but I _can't_ remember." He laughs bitterly. "And of course Father knows I'm making a mess of things again, so he's angry and I'm trying to find somewhere he can't, you know, somewhere I won't be in the way, and—usually that's where I wake up. Running through hallways the house doesn't have, afraid of—" He cuts himself off with a huff. "It's absurd."

"No," Artoirel says. "It isn't." It's no secret to anyone in Fortemps Manor that there is a hierarchy to the count's affections, nor that Emmanellain is at the bottom of it. Still, Artoirel hadn't realized just how badly it affected him, to haunt even his sleeping mind.

"Tonight I managed to get out," Emmanellain goes on. "I thought for a second that would be better, getting out of the house, getting _away_. I went out a second-story window. And then..."

"Dravanians?" Artoirel guesses after a moment of silence. They, too, have been restless in the wake of the moon's fall.

"No." Emmanellain clings tighter to him. "Nothing. I stumbled away out into the white and the cold and there was _nothing_ , only the endless cold and blankness, even the house gone, and me there certain that I couldn't find the way back and nobody would ever come for me. That I'd just wander lost and alone until I died."

"Someone would come for you," Artoirel says. "I promise." He threads his fingers into Emmanellain's hair, stroking it gently. "I would, if no-one else."

"That's a pleasant thought." Emmanellain shifts, squirming as if he could burrow into Artoirel's warmth. "You always know what to say."

This isn't just politicking, Artoirel wants to protest, but he's not sure an argument would do any good at this point. Emmanellain is difficult to sway with logic at the best of times. Instead Artoirel turns his head to kiss Emmanellain's forehead, slow and lingering. Affection doesn't come easily to him; it's not something he's had nearly enough practice with. But the way Emmanellain leans into him feels like a good thing, so he does it again. There's warmth between them now, even if not anywhere else in this house. 

"Emmanellain," he says, shifting to try to look him in the eyes, not even sure what he wants to ask.

He's still trying to untangle the words when Emmanellain looks up, meeting his eyes at last, hopeful and nervous—and kisses his mouth, just as careful as he had been, just as insistent.

It should be a shocking moment. It should be a scandal, a taboo broken, an affront to decency. Artoirel finds that instead he just thinks _oh, of course_. The house is cold and still and bearing down around them in all directions, the weight of expectation and propriety and an endless, quiet siege, and Artoirel kisses back.

He likely isn't very good at it. He feels rather like he did when he was first practicing swordsmanship, aware of what his actions should look like but not at all how they should feel. But Emmanellain's lips are soft and his fingers are twined tightly in Artoirel's nightshirt, and when his tongue presses cautiously into Artoirel's mouth it's enough to make a shiver run down Artoirel's spine. 

Who taught Emmanellain to do this? Artoirel can't even begin to guess. But he's learning as they go, as Emmanellain's tongue teases his own and retreats again, as he finds his own grip tightening to keep his brother—Fury's breath, his _brother_ —pressed as close as he can. Their legs tangle together, holding each other yet another way, and when that gives Emmanellain the leverage to rock his hips and grind against Artoirel's thigh, it makes Artoirel whimper into the kiss. The sound is undignified but it provokes a needy shudder from Emmanellain and another slow indecent grind.

If he were worried about decency, here where nobody can see them, Artoirel would never have invited Emmanellain into his bed in the first place. He rolls them over, so that instead of lying side by side he has Emmanellain pinned beneath him.

" _Oh_ ," Emmanellain gasps against his mouth, holding tighter when Artoirel tries to move to release him. So it's not a protest, simply surprise, just—Artoirel tries rocking down against Emmanellain's hardness, and he intends it to be simply an offer of further pleasure, but the friction makes his own cock twitch, too.

The next moment Emmanellain is pushing a hand between them, groping clumsily until he finds Artoirel's shaft and squeezes, making it stiffen further, making Artoirel want to push into that grip. What they have done is already too much, and he should stop; instead he reaches down to pull up the hem of his nightshirt far enough that Emmanellain can, if he wants, touch bare flesh—and Emmanellain does so without hesitation, soft fingers wrapping around Artoirel's stiff length.

"Please," Emmanellain says, a soft puff of breath against Artoirel's throat as he squirms; of course, he won't want to be neglected when he was the first to reach this point of need.

"Yes," Artoirel answers. He reaches down himself, shifting his weight to his other arm, and pulls Emmanellain's nightshirt out of the way. For a moment they're in each other's way, before he finds a position that will let him touch the suede-smooth skin of Emmanellain's cock.

"Oh," Emmanellain says again, "oh gods," and Artoirel wonders how much experience he has: he plays the part of an aspiring decadent in public, but has anyone actually dallied with him to put that act to the proof?

Certainly when he closes his hand around Emmanellain's shaft, Emmanellain seems every bit as overwhelmed by the experience as he is. They stroke each other clumsily, out of time, and Emmanellain peppers Artoirel's jaw and throat with frantic kisses. The touch is less precise than when Artoirel fends for himself, but there is a thrill to having another's touch on him—to having his _brother's_ touch on him, Halone have mercy on his soul.

They move together in the dark, more quickly as they gain practice, and Artoirel returns Emmanellain's kisses with all the passion in him. Emmanellain is making soft, stunned noises, as though he can't believe the evidence of his own senses, and if anyone else were awake at this hour Artoirel would fear being overheard—never moreso than when Emmanellain arches beneath him, shaking, coming apart under his hand.

Artoirel pauses after that, uncertain if they'll continue, and Emmanellain gives him a little lopsided smile. "Never fear, I've no intention of leaving you unsatisfied," he murmurs, and he does now sound as confident as the rake he sometimes seems. His hand moves faster, rhythmic and steady and his palm so soft, and Artoirel surrenders to it, trembling all through his limbs as he spills on his brother's belly. 

The world doesn't end. The Fury doesn't strike him down. Artoirel catches his breath, his heart pounding in his ears, and finds a handkerchief to wipe away the mess. 

"Did that help?" he asks softly. "Are the nightmares put to rest for now?"

Emmanellain nods. "Do I have to leave?"

He _should_. This isn't appropriate at all. "You have to be up at first light, if you stay," Artoirel says instead. "You can't be found here."

"Fair," Emmanellain says. "Can't pretend I _like_ seeing the dawn, but for this it's worth it."

"You're a terrible flirt," Artoirel tells him. He settles back into bed, warmer now from Emmanellain's presence, and Emmanellain immediately slips an arm around him again. It shouldn't feel so comfortable, or so familiar, but what _should_ be has little bearing on the truth tonight.

The calamity of Dalamud's fall has frozen Ishgard solid, bitter cold leeching away all of their vitality and fortitude—but tonight, however unorthodox the method, the two of them have found their way to at least a temporary thaw.


End file.
